Shadowrun Online Footage, Cost Change Details

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Forthcoming tactical combat game Shadowrun Online, which we first looked at here (and not to be confused with the gigantically Kickstarted RPG, Shadowrun Returns) has revealed some early game footage, which they stress is a work-in-progress prototype, and you can see that below. But they too have hit Kickstarter, aiming for a fulsome $500k to fund their work. They’ve also rethought some of their plans about how he game is to be paid for, and are now opting for a model not unlike Guild Wars, as you can see below.

Here’s the crucial quote about how they’re dealing with it being both free to play, and purchaseable:

Following the business model of games like Guild Wars, we’ll also offer the game as a standard client based PC/Mac/and iOS/Android tablet game with with all items that give any advantage in the in-game store bought with in-game “Nuyen” you earn while playing Shadowrun Online! So basically, you buy the game ONCE, really OWN the game, and can play it for as long as you want WITHOUT EXTRA CHARGES.

People will still be able to play for free too, of course, but they’ll have to pay if they want all the things.

Ah, good times, good times. No Remorse and No Regret, two of my favorite old PC games. Need to see if I can find those, I miss the fun of blowing everything up and being a total badass cyber-bounty-assassin thing.

See, I have very little (read none) experience of MMOs and their pricing/subscription systems, but Shadowrun is awesome and I thought this one sounded interesting, so I decided to take the risk of backing it.
Then literally the next day they update saying they’re changing the entire pricing system and (it seems like) the content management of the game, as well as the rewards for various pledge levels.

Now I know I *can* cancel my pledge. I won’t (see above re: no experience of MMO pricing systems), so maybe that gives me no right to complain, but… I’m a little concerned. This is still a Shadowrun MMO, which is cool, but it’s not entirely the project I decided to support with my money… and I don’t particularly like how that radical change was able to happen, entirely out of the blue.

No one else is going to point out that the game play footage is the exact same engine as Jagged Alliance Online? The sound effect that is played of the guy dying at the end is the exact same sound I’ve heard a million times in JA2. It even has the green exit squares from JAO as further evidence of my point. Which is this. So Shadowrun Online is a re-skinning of JAO. And it seems made by the same people. And JAO is not that great of a game. Without the real time strategy layer (or any strategy layer really) the tactical combat isn’t enough to carry it.

I usually find that anything I might add to the comments here is well said by someone else already. So, I finally registered to sound the warning. Be wary of this game!

You trolled me hard there. Shadowrun really has a lot going for it. Not much of which will be in the videogame but hey, it really is an amazingly rich universe. A wee too complex for a pen’n’paper rpg at times (As frankly it is incredibly hard to play well and fluently with people who have not themselves read all the crap in the books, too much stuff to consider at all times in my dumb opinion, which is a problem encountered by many overly ambitious sci-fi universes, eclipse phase being a good example) but amazing nonetheless.

that pretty much sums up why right there–took itself too seriously. i’ve genuinely always heard negative opinions of shadowrun from all regions of role playing, so i am wondering where the interest comes from. on a sidenote, a much more interesting contemporary was SLA if anyone remembers that one!

Shadowrun was great to play, especially for people who love dice ;)
Reading the basic manual was mandatory for each player of course.

We played a huge range of P&P Rpgs in those days, we had a pool of over a dozen gamers almost everyone a gamemaster with their own prefered system. I hosted GURPS for example, my favourite system until today (the original Fallout started out in cooperation with Steve Jackson games and was supposed to use GURPS mechanics, a cooperation which did not last, but there is a lot of GURPS in Fallout).

Shadowrun stood out, because of its fascinating game world and the game mechanics were not that bad, once you got used to them. Did I mention the fun we had rolling the dice? Tons of dice!

Oh nonono, shadowrun doesn’t really take itself too seriously. The universe is complex but it can go from über serial to completely bonkers in a matter of seconds. And that is reinforced by the flexibility of the creation system. We have had sexless full-borg texas rangers strip-teasers in our games which didn’t contrast with the rest of the universe (The transhumanist nightclub scene is rather amusing). And yes, it has a lot of dices.

And what crowd would that be? It was our favourite PnP RPG by far. It was so much better than Cyperpunk 2020, for example (imho). And it was super popular in Germany (which is probably why the other Shadowrun’s extra city was voted Berlin)

Shadowrun in cooperation with and Shadowrun under the direction of the original creator, this has got to be good.http://www.shadowrun.com
And Cyberpunk coming as well…high tech low life. Unfuckingbelievable!

Is Kickstarter starting the new and true Golden Age of pc games?
I need a lot of 21st evergreens when it is time for me to waste time in the nursing home. Nursing home LAN parties, something to look forward to, is it not? No knitting group for me.

I have generally stayed clear of Kickstarter recently – *all* of the projects I backed were… disappointing and I’m yet anything I pledged for so this isn’t a “_you should back this_” comment more of a “_this is why I gave in to the madness!_”.

Despite my bad experiences I have backed this one because a) I love Shadowrun, b) the game sounds like it understands the source material really well, c) if it is 80% like they say it will be, then it will be good fun and d) I am currently GMing a Shadowrun campaign and it rocks! :)

I’ve backed the $25 pledge as that is as much as I am willing to risk and the Campaign server sounds like my kind of thing. Should you back it? I have no idea :D